“When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power.”

—  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien , book On Fairy-Stories

On Fairy-Stories (1939)
Context: The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power.

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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien 78
British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy … 1892–1973

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